


Make It Up to Me

by EmperorsVornskr



Series: Tumblr Prompts [15]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abuse, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Beating, Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Consensual Violence, Established Relationship, Loss of Control, M/M, Post TLJ, Strangulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:47:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25304758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmperorsVornskr/pseuds/EmperorsVornskr
Summary: “There is no us,” Hux hissed between his teeth, his fists clenching and shaking. “You ended anything between us when you did this to me.”Hux confronts Kylo after the events of Crait, and doles out his own abuse to even the playing field- with some dire realisations.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Series: Tumblr Prompts [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1677616
Comments: 20
Kudos: 99





	Make It Up to Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ben_Swolos_Right_Peck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ben_Swolos_Right_Peck/gifts).



Hux sat at his desk, trying to focus on the reports. The losses kept coming in, the costs were astronomical. 

He’d protested against the _Supremacy_. A capital ship of that size, all the resources contained in one place, it was a moving target, too big to properly defend, especially since the fleet wasn’t big enough, flexible enough to give it proper cover. Snoke had dismissed him, dismissed his concerns as fleeting, narrow-minded, even called him a fool. 

“Who’s the fool now, Snoke?” he growled as he set aside his datapad. “You’re dead and you deserved it, and good pfassking riddance, you shriveled disgusting, idiotic, near-sighted pathetic fool.”

“That’s quite the line of insults, General. Were they aimed at me?”

Hux looked up as Kylo Ren came into his office, his shadow falling over the datapads. He kept his face placid, neutral.

“And why would I be so stupid as to insult you openly where anyone can hear me, Supreme Leader?” Hux asked, picking up his mug and sipping from it. The bitter tea soothed him with its heat- and hid his wince as he called Ren ‘Supreme Leader.’ 

“You’ve done far more foolhardy things,” Ren said softly. 

“Not as of late, seeing as I’m running things while you chase after a scavenger, and you demote me, while lifting up that shriveled old bat instead, and all he does is spend his time with the remaining older officers when he’s not simply standing on the bridge of the Steadfast pretending to work, or when he’s not complaining about how First Order Star Destroyers don’t have command chairs!” Hux snapped. 

“Here I am, still trying to figure out how the Order is going to recover from the loss of the Supremacy, the Supreme Leader is running wild with the Knights of Ren, and there’s no real body of leadership. We are dead in space right now, Supreme Leader, and I am trying to get us flying again.” 

“I’m not here about that,” Ren growled, coming close to Hux’s desk, leaning forward and putting his hands on the surface, pushing datapads away. Hux looked up at him irritably. 

“Then what are you here for?”

“Us.”

The single word had Hux’s temper flaring to life, and he ripped his coat off his shoulders, undoing the sealing seam of his tunic and pulling it off. He tore off his undershirt as he got to his feet, baring his torso to Ren. 

Ren had mistaken his sudden disrobing as lust, and had taken off his mask, tossing it aside, but stopped as he finally _looked_ at Hux’s face, then at his pale skin. His throat went dry, his mouth falling open a little. 

Hux’s pale torso was a giant bruise on one side- the parts that weren’t wrapped in stiff bandages, anyway- and his slender throat was ringed with purple, green and yellow. Hux’s eyes were glittering with unsuppressed fury, and Ren stepped back a few steps. 

“There is no _us_ ,” Hux hissed between his teeth, his fists clenching and shaking. “You ended anything between us when you did this to me.”

Ren swallowed. He knew, in the back of his mind, that he’d hurt Hux. But this? What had he done? 

“I don’t- Hux… I don’t remember-”

“How can you _not_ remember? You _choked_ me, you crushed my windpipe until I called you Supreme Leader!” Hux cried angrily. “You _threw me against the bulkhead of the Upsilion_ and _I lost consciousness_. I broke three ribs, my hyoid was nearly cracked, my entire pharynx was bruised, you nearly ruptured my spleen, and I had a concussion. _You could have killed me, and you **don’t remember**? And you expect me to **LET YOU BACK INTO MY BED?**_ ” 

Hux’s voice was loud, shrill, and full of pain. It was as passionate as it had been when he’d made the speech on Starkiller Base- but instead of pride and excitement, it was full of pain, betrayal and disbelief. 

It cut Ren to the core. 

The worst part was, he truly didn’t remember. He remembered the lightsaber exploding during his fight with Rey, remembered the RAGE he’d felt when he came to and realised Rey had escaped _again_ , paired with the fear of the knowledge that Snoke was dead and the role of Supreme Leader was up for grabs. 

He jolted as he remembered his fear was that if Hux had seized the position, he wouldn’t want anything to do with him anymore, that he’d dispose of him. He’d been afraid that Hux had only been sleeping with him, spending time with him because he was Snoke’s apprentice. 

Then his mind had gone blank, because that fear was all Rey’s fault, and he had to destroy her, the Resistance, and anything in his way was a threat. He’d gone berserk trying to protect his position, and maintain a reason for Hux to continue wanting him. 

In doing so, he’d pushed Hux away. He hadn’t even realised what had happened until after he’d emerged from his haze of anger, of rage, and he felt like he’d lost an entire day- as if no time had passed between the explosion of the lightsaber, and the vision of Rey shutting the hatch of the Millennium Falcon on their bond. 

It was as if he’d completely lost himself, and now, he’d lost Hux. 

“I can’t defend what I did, Armitage,” he said weakly, almost pleading. “But I cannot remember what I did. Not between falling unconscious in the throne room, and … waking up on Crait with the Resistance escaping. I lost myself to my anger.” 

Hux continued to glare at him, still frozen between wanting to flee, wanting to continue yelling at him, and worst of all- his eyes glistened with unshed tears. 

“What can I do to make this right, Armitage?” he whispered, his throat thick with tears of his own at seeing Hux, the cold, immovable General, close to crying. 

“Get on your knees,” Hux said coldly. 

Ren reacted immediately, moving to the side of the desk and falling to his knees. He took his lightsaber off his belt and sent it sliding across the polished floor, out of reach. They both knew he could retrieve it with the Force, but the gesture said more than any words could. 

“How sorry are you?” Hux asked from behind his desk. 

“I don’t have words for how sorry I am, Armitage,” Ren whispered. “If I had been of my own mind, I never would have hurt you the way I did. I was consumed with anger, and I lost myself.”

“Would you take the same abuse you gave to me?” Hux asked, his voice deadly soft. Ren blinked. 

“Take the same?”

“I would never kill you- I doubt you’d let me, and I doubt I could- but would you be willing to take my pain from me?” 

“You mean heal you? With the Force?” Ren asked, confused- but the seething, the coiling and whispering rage in Hux’s presence told him that no, that was not what he wanted. 

“If I choke you, will you fight back? If I kick you in the ribs, will you lash out?”

Hux wanted to beat him up, abuse him, choke him, inflict the same damage on him that Ren had. 

“No. You could flay me alive if you wanted, Armitage. I would cut out my tongue, castrate myself, let you vivisect me, if it meant you might forgive me,” he all but whimpered. 

For Armitage, he’d go back to the Light if it meant he’d get the man back to where they’d been before that awful moment where Ren’s loss of control had shattered everything. 

He’d been ready to tell Armitage he loved him, and he’d ruined it all with the lack of control that had plagued his life since he was a child. 

Hux was faster than Ren gave him credit for- his leather-clad hands were around his throat before he had even registered he was in front of him. Those hands were smaller, thinner than his own, but they were wiry and deft, flexible and strong. They couldn’t wrap around his neck entirely, but they didn’t need to- Hux knew where the carotid artery was, where to press his thumbs against the hyoid. 

Hux’s face was cold, impassive, but his eyes were full of rage, of pain, and betrayal as he slowly crushed Ren’s throat in his hands. The leather of his gloves creaked as he squeezed, thumbs digging up under Ren’s chin, pressing the hyoid, the ball of his hand pressing into his carotid. 

“I trusted you,” Hux hissed, baring his teeth, but his face otherwise remained cold. “I let you into my room, my bed, my arms… my _mind_. I showed you my belly and you nearly killed me, twice over!”

Ren’s vision was going dark, spots were blooming in front of his eyes, his ears were full of a dull roar, a low wooshing, and he was going light-headed, woozy. 

“I hate you for what you did to me- for making me think I could _trust you_!”

Ren didn’t hear what he said after that- his vision went black, and he passed out. 

He woke what felt like ages later to the sensation of pain wracking through his body that caused him to curl up reflexively with a cry. Hux had driven the durasteel toe of his boot into his ribs. 

“Get up!” Hux roared. “Weakling, you snivelling child, worthless little shit, **_get up!_** ” 

Ren got back to his knees, shaking, his breath coming short and shallow, only to get another boot to his side. He fell over, taken aback by the sheer force that Hux delivered the blow with. He wheezed, and felt something throb and ache deep inside his ribcage. He fought to get to his knees, and was rewarded with Hux circling behind him and sending his boot into his kidney.

“You never trusted me, did you? I could never be good enough, I could never measure up, I was nothing more than a boost for your own pathetic ego, I will _never_ be enough to be worth of love, and you showed me that by beating me, to leave the mark of worthlessness where everyone could see it!”

Ren braced himself for another blow, but it never came- instead, the room filled with silence. 

“Stars…,” Hux choked out, and Ren looked up at him. His face was pale, his fists shaking, his frame trembling. 

“I’m no better than _them_ ,” he whispered, falling to his knees in front of Ren. 

“I’m no better than _them_ ,” he repeated, cradling Ren’s face in his hands and stroking away the tears Ren didn’t even realise he’d shed. 

“Stars, I’m so sorry, Kylo.”

Kylo choked out a sob and pressed his face into Hux’s trembling hands. 

_I’m sorry, Armitage. I’m so sorry, I’m hurting you again, even now._

_No, Kylo, no. I did what I swore I’d **never** do._

He got up and pulled a medkit from his desk, and sat down on the floor, pulling Kylo into his lap. Carefully, tenderly, he removed Kylo’s tunic, his armour, and exposed his battered torso. He removed his gloves and began applying bacta and bandages to the rapidly blooming bruises on his pale skin. 

_I hurt someone I love to teach them a lesson, instead of letting them grow and move past it. I’m no better than Snoke, than Brendol. Stars, Kylo, what have I done?_

Kylo nuzzled into Armitage’s chest, whimpering ever so slightly as the long slender fingers brushed over his wounds. 

_You only did what I did to you, and it was no more than I deserve._

_No, Kylo,_ Armitage said, pressing a kiss to his forehead with trembling lips. _I didn’t deserve that, but you didn’t either, and I’m so sorry._

Kylo was quiet as Armitage tended to his wounds. His mind was dwelling on one line. 

> _I hurt someone I love._
> 
> _I hurt someone I love._

“I love you, too,” he blurted. 

Armitage’s pale grey-green eyes went wide, his hands freezing in mid-stroke of a bacta application.

“I love you, too, Armitage, and I’m sorry, I’m sorry, so sorry,” he said, his voice getting tight. “I’ll never hurt you again, I promise, and I will do anything and everything I can to make sure of it.”

Armitage looked away, wrenching his eyes shut, tears spilling over his cheeks as he bared his teeth in pain and shame. 

“Kylo…” he said, unable to say anything more. 

Kylo sat up as best he could and put his hands to Armitage’s face. He pulled him close and kissed him, deep, gentle and long, his fingers threading through the gelled red hair. Armitage let out a sob against his lips, his breath burning hot with tears as he wrapped arms around Kylo’s shoulders gently. 

“I love you. I forgive you,” Armitage murmured against Kylo’s lips between kisses. “Please forgive me.”

“I love you and I forgive you, Armitage,” Kylo replied quietly, going back to kissing his General. 

“Would promoting you to Grand Marshal help?” he asked shyly. 

Armitage laughed shakily and kissed him again. 

_I’ll hold you to that, Supreme Leader_ , he said with only a small amount of amusement. Kylo sighed in relief and pulled him close. 

Mindful of each other’s wounds, old and new, they kissed there on the floor, sprawled in a heap of tears, bruises and relief. 


End file.
